Spx options settlement today

Yes, very confusing.

SPXW (Weekly) Afternoon Settlement Hybrid System (Electronic and Pit traded) many people send quotes electronically
SPXQ (Quarterly) Afternoon Settlement, Pit Traded, One "group" sends quotes into system
SPX regular. Morning settle, Pit traded, one "group" sends quotes into system.
SPXPM Afternoon Settle (no weekly's as SPXW are essentially the same thing) Electronic and Pit traded, Multiple "groups" send in quotes.

In the SPXPM, SPXW if you see a quote, you can trade instantly electronically. In the SPXQ, SPX, it may take awhile to be filled as a broker may be holding the bid or offer and another broker will have to find him.

At least with the ES I've never had a problem getting a fill...even those way OTM..perhaps because ES is all electronic.dunno
 
regular monthly SPX options are a pain in the butt, wide spreads, hard to fill between and the silly opening settlement in which the index never trades at
Actually, at most times, you can trade serious size at mid at a pre-specified tie via a voice broker. Hell, I traded 500k of vega in the last 15 min of the day today - try doing that via screens. As an instututional market, SPX options market is very functional. If are a small-time player and do not have access to a proper coverage, you can always use SPY options instead.

need to get rid of the cboe floor and go full electronic
I think the floor will be around for a while. So far, electronic market makers do not provide full value that the floor provides - tied execution on pre-specified size, actionable complex spread markets and (most importantly) institutional size.

Agreed that the "inside" quote is usually very tight. The problem is the fair value can be hidden. For example a quote may be 18-20 with fair value at 19, but suppose someone puts an 18.90 bid in. Fair value is still 19 but the mid point would change to 19.45. If you then paid the mid point you would be overpaying for the option.
Well, you should know the value of the product you are buying, that's trading 101 :) In general, you don't want to be asking for a market in a voice broker unless you have a proper vol surface and can at least guess where the mid should be.
 
I bot 9 spx march 1890 calls for $0.05 Thursday just before close. I tried to sell them for $0.10 but no luck. They exercised for $3.30 each based on the open/SET... wow. Nearly $3k profit on $50 trade!

Unfortunately I also had some 1885 calls I sold with just 2 seconds to go for a small profit yesterday ($50 profit on $150 trade) that would have been worth $10k this morning.

I really missed out on some huge $$ if I had set up my usual expiration positions...I usually have sizable debit spreads just out of the $$ for cheap lottery tickets, just in case. Just haven't seen this crazy of a SET value in a while. The craziest I remember was after the bailout package was announced 5 years ago (big rally at Friday open, but SET was insane). I had options I had long written off for dead exercise for $$$.

I suspect premiums will be bid up on OOTM SPX options on expiration days for a while until people forget about this one .
 
Hi

Anybody can explain how come the SPX seems to have settled at 1893.30 this morning, when the ES never neared that price ?

http://www.cboe.com/data/Settlement.aspx

I had 8 SPX 1865 short calls from a calendar spread expiring today, and according to TWS I lost according to that settlement price.

Also when is last available time to rollover SPX options ?

Actually it's just part of my losses today - despite beeing net long :(- but still upstet I left over 10k messing with this spread

I usually stick with ES options if I'm holding overnight into qrtly expiry. At least you can trade right up to the open then.

Expiries are evil.
 
So...heard today that "they" will start opening SPX and VIX options for trade at 1AM Eastern. Does this mean that you can trade the SPX (expiring) options the morning of SET or will Thurs Close be the last trade?
 
This is how it works for RUT (SPX is very similar):

The RLS is described as the RUT Flex Opening Exercise Settlement. The RLS is calculated by taking the opening price of each of the Russell 2000 stocks. Each day when the market opens all stocks don't start trading at the same time. So RLS might be very different from the opening value of RUT on Friday. In fact, it is possible that RLSs value will to be higher or lower than the RUT daily bar high/low.

This post might help - http://bit.ly/1cSbAkX
 
Hi

Anybody can explain how come the SPX seems to have settled at 1893.30 this morning, when the ES never neared that price ?

http://www.cboe.com/data/Settlement.aspx

I had 8 SPX 1865 short calls from a calendar spread expiring today, and according to TWS I lost according to that settlement price.

Also when is last available time to rollover SPX options ?

Actually it's just part of my losses today - despite beeing net long :(- but still upstet I left over 10k messing with this spread

I couldn't believe my eyes either. Just 10 seconds or so before 930 est it jumped over 20 points. Lost on the 5 point spread with a few contracts. Better luck next time:D
 
I couldn't believe my eyes either. Just 10 seconds or so before 930 est it jumped over 20 points. Lost on the 5 point spread with a few contracts. Better luck next time:D

Luck is not a strategy..

I have a rule - NEVER EVER hold RUT/SPX positions through expiration Friday. In fact, I rarely hold till Thursday. Traders who don't respect the negative gamma are going to be burned very badly some day. I will gladly leave the last few nickels to someone else.
 
I'll call it. Have you actually tested if the pre-expiration optionality is mispriced in either direction?

I don't know if it is mispriced. The risk/reward is just not symmetrical. You can usually gain maybe $20-30 per spread, but the loss could be up to 1k on a $10 spread. And due to the nature of the settlement, there is nothing you can do about it.
 
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